Falling Apart and Picking Up the Pieces
by IantoJonesIsNotDead
Summary: An AU fic; Arizona has issues, and a torturous past
1. Supposed To Be A Good Day

**Just off the top of my head ---IJIND**

*****

It was supposed to be a good day.

I first kind of realised it was likely to go down the drain after it took five cups of crappy hospital caf coffee, complete with about fifty packs of sugar, to get me even the least bit functional. Huh. The kids just LOVED me today.

Good days don't come that often any more, not for me.

I haven't slept well in a week and a half. I'm tearing apart inside, I'm crumbling into pieces, and no one can see it past the walls I throw up to try and shield myself. Stupid, stupid Arizona. It's like I'm sitting here thinking anyone even cares.

We had to pull the plug on a kid.

It hurts, it kills me, feeling a child's skin go cold beneath my fingers, watching the line on the monitor flutter and grow still. I don't know why I do this, why I hang around, why I think I'm ever going to get better at walking up to parents and saying "[Insert Name Here] didn't make it. We did everything we could."

So I'm standing here now at a nurse's station just hoping nothing else goes to pot before my shift ends and I can ditch this and drink myself to sleep.

It's murder having to see the woman you've fallen for standing at the other end of the counter, her back to you, sleeves shoved up in that peculiar way she has, pen pressed to her lips as she fiddles with a chart. That's why I chose this station. It's not like I STALK HER or anything, but this is usually where she ends her shifts and does her paperwork.

I need tequila, rye, gin, anything to stave off the ever-approaching darkness. Hospitals are like military hangars; filled with death. Places I never want to be, but places I always seem to get stuck.

After Danny died last year, I was in the same place, in the same hangar, the same hot tears streaming down my cheeks, as my first girlfriend was carried out of the jet. Fickle fate.

My eyes swing over towards her at the same instant she looks my way. Her small grin makes my heart fill my chest. "Hey," she murmurs, before turning back to her paper. We've met a couple times in the hall, she worked with me on a girl with two broken legs. She thinks she knows me.

"Uh.. hi," stumbles off my lips. Shut up, Arizona. Shutupshutupshutupshutup. Stupid startled bunny reactions. Calliope Torres, please remove yourself from my head.

She smiles, her face lighting up. "You okay?"

"Yeah, sure," I reply. Never let them see your pain, fear, exhaustion, anger, sorrow, tears, hate; purposely lie. Never let them get to know the real you, go to bars but don't drink, join the baseball game but don't care whether you win or lose, go to the War Memorial on Veteran's Day but remain stoic, no matter how much it feels like you're going to implode.

"Really?" She takes a step closer, sets her chart on the counter, raises a hand to my forehead. No. Get out of my head, get out of my space, I can't let any one near this monster I've become, no one can know just how fractured I really am. "You look kind of pale." She's watched me enough to know what kind of white is considered to be 'pale' with me? I'm naturally very light; go away, Calliope, I told you I was fine, take the lie I feed you, eat it whole, take the lie because it's so, so much easier to stomach than the truth.

She's calling for a nurse as I'm falling to the ground; no, I don't need a nurse, I'm fine, I am so, so so fine, so very fine indeed, I'm fucked-up, I'm insecure, neurotic, emotional, I am FINE. I don't need a nurse, I'm a doctor, I can diagnose myself. Interior lacerations to the heart, increased pulse, flushed skin, sweat, everything points towards a tearing heart. I'm fine, I've lived with the tears and the sorrow and the rejection and the women I could never have for so very long. I AM FINE. Leave it alone, Calliope Torres. The only thing you could do to help me would to be take me to dinner, feed this image I have of us as a couple, feed this fervent hope that someday, maybe, there'll be something there, that you won't want to be just friends... My mind is running away from me, sprinting into the distance leaving me cold, I can't keep my eyes open, Calliope Torres, stop looking at me with those frightened eyes, you shouldn't be scared for me, you know nothing....

*****

I wake up with the flimsy cotton hospital gown slicked to my body by sweat, and the first thought that comes to my mind was that today was supposed to be a good day.

Then I come back into reality with the fierce tug of the IV needle in my arm, pumping life into my veins; this could never bring me to life; I'm too far gone for anyone to save me, I've been dead for years. Nothing's gonna give me back feeling inside of me.

Calliope Torres, she's sitting at the end of my bed, looking like she hasn't slept, still in her scrubs. Why the hell is she here? I'm not opposed, just, she was getting off shift at 8 last night, and the clock on the wall says it's 4 in the morning. Go home. Get some rest. Have a cup of coffee. Revel in the fact that you don't have to take the alcohol to get sleep free of dreams of tiny coffins. Get out of my head, get out of my space. Leave me to wallow in my fear; I've done it alone for so long, why do you think I need someone now?

I'm fine, I hear myself saying; in my head though, the words never pass my lips. When you're a patient, it's not good to lie. It's not good to say the pain is at a 2 when it's actually an 8, when the pounding in your head is so much louder than the voices of the people around you. You're not supposed to lie, when you're on the other side of the chart. The doctors know what's best, don't lie to them even if they're the ones lying to everyone around them. "Hey," I say. Great, Arizona. Way to start a conversation. Might as well have kept on sleeping.

"Hey," she replies. "How are you feeling?"

Do I lie to that one, though? What do I say? Do I tell the truth; I feel like I'm tearing apart, like there are pieces here and I don't know where they go? Do I tell the truth; I'm dying, and no one sees it, it's like everyone is blinded by the perkiness, by the walls I throw up? Do I tell the truth; I'm horrible, I've got such a case of a breaking heart, I feel like I want to rip the IV from my arm, pull you out of that chair and pin you to the wall, anything I can do to cover up the fractures and the scars? "I'm alright." Once again, fantastic, Ari, just, just GREAT, you have such a way with words.

She smiles, kills me inside. "Low blood sugar, we pushed it through the IV, you should be fine in an hour or two." Really, low blood sugar? After the morning coffee I had? And 'fine'? Great choice of words there. I nod, I don't trust my lips enough to say anything without the fear they'll betray me. I finally pull myself together.

"You've got a six AM shift, don't you? Cause if you do, you better get to an on-call room." She shakes her head.

"Day off." Fuck. Calliope Torres, leave now. Don't display this amount of affection for someone you've had a long conversation with all of once, don't give up a day off to sit at the bedside of a stupid pediatric surgeon with stupid low blood sugar who is stupidly rambling on inside her head. "I thought I'd just stay, until you woke up. I'll leave now." She gets up; for some reason I don't want her to leave, the alone that is usually such a blanket for me is now filling me with fear, as if it would suffocate me for her to go.

"Don't go, please, I can't bear to be alone." Oh God. Oh God, ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod, that's what I was afraid of. My mouth snaps shut, but the damage is done. Stupid Arizona, stupid thinking, stupid brain.

She turns around in the doorway, grabs her chair and drags it to the head of my bed, sitting down again. She grips my hand; the IV pounds away in my arm, ripping me to pieces as my skin burns at the touch. "I won't leave if you don't want me to." Stay, stay forever, figure out what a broken person I am and sew me back together, but try, just try to remain emotionless about it. Cut. Suture. Close.

Because that's all you need, someone to be there.

Someone to pick you up, someone to pull you back together.

Someone to make the cut, someone to do the suture, someone to close you up.

Just cut, suture, close.


	2. Hot As Hell Orthopedic Surgeon

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, except for Kyle Robbins. Not Grey's Anatomy, not the characters, not Turin Brakes, nothing.**

**Thanks for all the awesome feedback on chapter one.**

**IJIND**

*****

It's two hours later, and Bailey's at my side with the release papers. Calliope's still in her chair, still gripping my hand. We didn't talk. I didn't want to risk another mishap, another slip-up of my tongue. It hurt so much, sitting here and knowing I couldn't have her, but keeping constant contact. I am retarded. Stupid, retarded Arizona. I can't ever have her, I might as well never try.

I sign the last paper, climb out of the bed and grab my dirty scrubs. I go to the washroom; I don't particularly think Calliope would appreciate me stripping in front of her, and I look at my face in the mirror; look past it, you can't tell anything from a face, not anything true or real, or so I tell myself, because if I believe what my face was telling me, I am totally screwed, because it really, REALLY betrays exactly how I feel about a certain orthopedic surgeon.

I pull on the disgustingly-dirty, entire-shift-used, I'm-going-to-wear-these-for-five-minutes-until-I-get-a-clean-pair-from-my-locker scrubs and rub at a dark line across my left wrist before shaking my head. No regressing into dark and twisty emoness today, not if you want a chance with her, Arizona. No one wants to be privy to someone else's dark thoughts, if they're not totally invested in them.

When I leave the bathroom, Calliope's still there. Man, this woman has amazing patient care; that's what makes her a great doctor. I've perfected the art of the lie; that's what makes me an awesome doctor. I walk towards the door, and she lays her hand in the small of my back, like she's trying to make sure I don't fall over again. Calliope Torres, I need my space, I know we've been holding hands for the past two hours, but you don't know me, you don't know exactly how much I'm falling apart right now, because I know this isn't going to last. Stupid, stupid Arizona, stop getting yourself into these situations.

"I'm going to go home," I murmur, heading towards the attending locker room to grab my bag. She follows me, hovering at my shoulder as if I'm a little kid, as if I'm one of my patients.

"I'll drive you," she offers. On what, your motorcycle? I AM NOT A STALKER, I just know these things, because I'm awesome like that. I find myself nodding, and groan inwardly. Arizona, you retard, what are you DOING?

I grab the clothes I came to work in from my cubby, slipping into a stall and pulling on the skinny jeans and long-sleeved Turin Brakes tee, also known as Arizona's depressing-day wear. How the hell did I end up at the hospital wearing these clothes when I thought today was going to be such a good day? I stuff my dirty scrubs back into my cubby; I'll clean them tomorrow, and sling my messenger bag over my shoulder. It feels like the walls of the hospital are pressing in on me, threatening to crush me. I need to get home, I've been out too long, I stay out any longer, there's a very good chance that I snap and go on some horrendous killing spree. I JOKE. More likely I'd drink myself into a stupor at Joe's, then wander back to Grace ten minutes before my next shift with a massive hangover. Home is where the heart is, or more, the sleeping pills and the ice cream and the darkness.

Calliope comes out of a stall in a dark red top that goes amazingly with her tanned skin, and a pair of dress pants. She snags her purse, tossing her scrubs into the hamper across the room, and grins at me. "You about ready to go?"

I nod, trying to keep my eyes off her, to make it less hard than it already is to be this close to her and not be able to touch her. She puts her arm around my shoulders, and I tell myself it's just to keep me steady, and we walk to the elevator down the hall. I kicked a toe as I stood at her side, not wanting to look in her direction as the fingers of my right hand sweep across my left wrist. NO REGRESSING, Arizona. Stop it. Move your hand down to your pocket. There, there you go, that's good.

The elevator dings, and Calliope and I step into the empty carrier together. I glare at the wall; it's too metallic, too enclosed, too much like an airplane, I have no control, and it's freaking me out. My right hand clenches into a fist in my pocket; this is why I usually take the stairs, so much safer, so much less memory-filled. One floor down from the locker room, the elevator doors open, and a man I recognize as Head of Plastics steps in.

"Hey, Cal," he mutters, his face drawn and lined. Apparently, he's never learned the rules of espionage; no showing emotion, ever.

"Yo, manwhore," she replies, her arm tensing against my back. From what I've heard, they're best mates, but it doesn't seem so from Calliope's reaction.

"Are-" he began, and Calliope's fingers dig into my shoulder blade as I try not to wince.

"Shut it, Sloan," she says quietly, biting her lip and looking towards the ceiling. I see the beginnings of tears in the corners of her eyes, and I want to reach up and wipe them away, but I know I can't. Not and still be in the silightly-safe zone. Slightly-safe, 'cause her arm around me, it's for support, right?

"It's just-"

"No."

"Not even-"

"No."

"You liar-"

"You're intimidated, admit it," Calliope replies, taking slow breaths. Sloan turns towards us and shakes his head.

"Don't, no, it's not fair! Shut up, Cal! Stop it!" It seems as if the four words that had been said were exploding his brain. "No, not again, argh, I'm with Lexie! Stop!"

"I'm not doing anything," the Latina says innocently as the elevator arrives on the ground floor. "And it's not happening again." We stride out as soon as the doors open.

"You play dirty, Cal!" he shouts after us, and Calliope shakes her head.

"No, Mark, YOU play dirty," Calliope murmurs under her breath, chewing on her lip as she rubs my shoulder. What am I, her teddy bear? God! It's hard enough just to watch her during the day, but now she's being, like, CLINGY. I'm screwed, I am so totally screwed. "I play nostalgia." Great, you know? Thank you, Manwhore, thank you for bringing up something that can hurt Calliope this badly.

I raise a slim hand, not realising what I'm doing, just because she looks so broken, and I wipe a tear off her cheek. "Hey," I mutter, hating myself for ever coming to Seattle, "let's go."

She nods, digging a set of keys out of her pocket and sliding her finger through the ring. "He's just an ass," she says, walking out into the parking lot as her hand drops off my shoulder. "Manwhore, ass, whatever." She unlocks her Thunderbird, opening the passenger door for me before getting into the driver's seat. I lean back, biting my lip as I pull the seatbelt across my chest. The car smells like her, like vanilla and cinnamon, and I try to breathe without bringing that intoxicating scent in.

She drives silently, listening to the directions I whisper as I stare out the window numbly. How do I do this? How do I cope with letting, well, someone I work with, but especially HER, see the disaster that is my apartment. The pitch black walls, the punk rock band posters like I'm still a teenager, the lack of any touch of family, or familiarity, that says a PERSON lives there, a real person, not just a fake peds surgeon who comes home and blasts music and takes sleeping pills and tries to keep from crying.

We pull up in front of the apartment complex, and she opens my door for me again, like I've got freaking broken limbs or something. I just passed out, that's all, Calliope. I dig through my purse, get my keys, and lead her up into the building; I can't just leave her standing beside her car, not after what she's done for me, not if I'm going to be dying inside because of how I'll end up hurting her. We stand in the elevator, still speechless, and when we arrive at my floor, I'm hesitant to get off. This is a bad idea. This is such an amazingly stupid, horrible idea. Stupid Arizona. It's too late to back out now. I fumble my key into the lock and open the door, wincing when I realize I didn't clean up before I left. There's a towel in the middle of the floor, an open box and half-eaten bowl of Shreddies on the counter, medical journals spread across the floor where I'd been doing late-night research. I'd been rushed, sure, I'd had a hard surgery that I'd read up on as much as I could before I had to leave, but now I was walking into my apartment with Calliope Torres, and, well, it was a mess.

"Sorry," I apologize, gesturing around the apartment. "I was just a bit late."

"Really?" she asks, grinning. "And I thought you'd been robbed by a rather hungry thief." She sets her purse beside my open laptop on the coffee table, and kneels to gather up the journals, flipping through them. "You had a cerebral angioplasty and stent placement?" she says in shock, looking up at me. "On a kid?"

I nod. "Kelsey Matthews, twelve years old, two younger brothers, played rep hockey and club basketball. She stroked out halfway through the procedure, and there was nothing we could do; we had to step back and watch her die." I don't want to talk about this, God how I don't want to talk about this. Kelsey, whose brothers were two and five, whose mother had died a year before, whose father was a broken wreck who had left the five year old, Jason, with the duty of comforting his brother. I close the cereal box and stuff it in the cupboard, taking a bite of the soggy remnants in the bowl. What can I say? I'm hungry. I spit the mouthful of mush and sour milk into the sink and rinse out the bowl before throwing it into the dishwasher.

She looks up from placing the journals on the table in time to see me ditch the bowl. "If you want, I can make a chicken picatta," she murmurs, crossing the room. "Unless you'd rather keep on your yucky cereal diet." I stare at her. Did she just use the word 'yucky'?

"Chicken picatta'd be nice," I reply stupidly, leaning on the counter. "I just had chicken last night, so there should be leftover meat in the fridge." I watch in awe as she bustles around me, she's never been here before, but it's like she knows exactly where everything is. And she has apparently memorized the recipe; she's measuring ingrdients left and right without ever consulting any piece of information. Time seems to speed up as my eyes latch on to her, it feels like we've only been there five minutes, but when she shocks me out of my revery, she's finished the picatta and put it in the oven.

"She played hockey?" Calliope says suddenly, sitting on one of the stools at the counter. I nod.

"Apparently she was triple-A, whatever that means, and she was on the State team."

"Wow, that's awesome. I used to play hockey, but I was never that good." She sets her hands on the counter, fingers tapping out a nervous rythym. "So, the fainting thing."

"You already said, low blood sugar." I let you in my house, Calliope, that doesn't mean I'm going to let you in my life. I'm not about to tell you that one of the side-effects of my sleeping pills is a decrease in energy, or that all I had in the way of food supplements yesterday was coffee and half a bowl of Shreddies.

She nods. Awkward. This is entirely awkward. We stay there, looking at each other, until she breaks it off with a laugh. "Okay. Yeah. I like your colour scheme." Colour scheme? COLOUR scheme? Black is not a colour, it's the absence of light, thank you grade nine arts class, and since that's the only tone in here, why are you talking about COLOUR scheme?

"Thanks," I reply, kicking my toe against the floor. She bites her lip, and I can't help but think that she looks incredibly hot like that. It's hard not to walk over and kiss her right now, but that would ruin everything.

The timer on the over goes, sounding so eerily like a pager that we both look towards our hips. Calliope removes mitts from a drawer and pulls the dish free of the oven. She almost throws it onto the stove-top as she mouths something under her breath and shakes her left hand, pulling off the mitts and turning the kitchen tap on full-blast before shoving her wrist under the current.

"Burn yourself?" I ask rather stupidly, obviously she has, Arizona. She nods, and I move to the bathroom to grab a medical kit from underneth the sink. When I come back, she's crying, slightly, and laughing through the tears.

"What-?" I aske, setting up my gear.

"Sorry, it's just... it's a BURN, it'a burn, and I'm crying, and I'm the kid who used to get up when I dislocated my shoulder and pop it back into place and not cry, and I'm crying at a first-degree burn." I grin at her, patting the skin dry as she winces, and wrapping a bandage around her arm.

"Burns hurt," I reply, leaving the med kit on the counter. Great answer. "Burns hurt a lot more than anything else."

She nods, grabbing plates and cutlery out of the cupboards. We sit at the counter and eat the picatta silently, except for me complimenting her cooking. I clean up, and she watches me from her perch on the stool, like she's on the edge of a question.

"Um, can I, can I sleep in your bed?" I look up at her in shock, and she blushes. "Sorry, no, I just came off a thirty-six hour shift full of traumas and broken bones and amputated limbs and I'm tired, and I'm going to have to stay here because I just realised I drove you home so I have to drive you back to Grace in the morning, because you don't want to trust Seattle transit and," she yawned, "I'm tired."

"Sure, that's fine, and thank you for doing this." I motion towards a door across the room. "It's over there." She nods, moving slowly across the room, and I'm on my laptop before she closes the door. Anything to forget that she will be SLEEPING in MY bed.

I check my e-mails, and then realise the date. It's a Sunday, which means my brother's out of training, and I haven't talked to him in a few months. It's easier, that way. I don't have to remember the pain of standing beside a brother who I don't recognize when he's breaking in tears as I stand numbly watching people emerge from a plane carrying my other brother's body.

I open up my Skype, dialling my parent's home number. He answers at his laptop on the first ring, he always does, if I'm calling. He knows how much it kills me to talk to any of them anymore, since Danny died and I started out on this insane spiral into darkness.

"Hey," Kyle says, a small smile on his face. "Long time, no talk, 'Zona." I've missed that, missed being called 'Zona. It was Danny who'd come up with it.

"Hey, well, I've been busy, Ky." Busy being depressed and watching children die, yeah.

"Busy stalking your crush?" he asks, and I frown.

"No, Ky, busy having fainting fits in the hospital and having my crush drive me home and fall asleep in my bed."

"Oh." He nods. "I see. And the Corporal bet you wouldn't talk to her for a year. There's twenty bucks for me." The Corporal = my father. He's been off-duty since we lost Danny.

"You and the Corporal BET on things like that?" I'm not going to tell him about the time when he was in high school, and Danny, the Corporal and I bet on whether or not he'd ask his crush to the prom. He did. I earned fifty bucks from each of them.

"Well, yeah, you and Danny did the same. I heard that story about Cristy and the prom bet." Oh, shit. Well, there goes that.

"How's Cristy?" It's been two years since that prom date, and last I heard, they were still going strong.

"I-I proposed." I gape at him.

"Way to go, Idaho!" My shout makes Calliope stir in the bedroom, and my face crumples. Shit. Shit shit shitshitshitshit. She's in my bed. The woman I think I'm falling for is in my bed. And she's staying until the night. Shit. I stand up, taking deep breaths to keep from hyperventilating. Shit.

"Thanks. Hey, 'Zona, are you okay?" And the award for stupidest question of the day goes to... Kyle Robbins. Please approach the podium to recieve your trophy and plaque and make your acceptance speech.

"I'm having a major mental meltdown, do I look okay? She's in there, in my bed," I rant, striding back and forth across my living room in front of the laptop, my hands fisted in my hair.

"That's what you want, though, right?" Kyle leans forward towards his webcam, and I pause, raising my hands as I stand open-mouthed.

"Yes! No! I don't know! This is all happening so quickly, and it's not even what I want to happen, at least, not this way. I want my bed back, I want my bed alone, that bed is awesome, I love that bed, I am tired, and angry, and tired, and tired, and I said that already, and I want my bed back!" I sit on the couch, shaking my head at my younger brother as I fiddle with a book I'd left on the coffee table. The Catcher in the Rye. "You know who I hate?"

"What?" He turns around to face me. "Sorry, Mum just wanted me to ask you if you're getting enough to eat."

"You must love the break, Ky." He grimaces. "Tell her I'm fine; I had chicken picatta for brunch, courtesy of the bed-stealing, leather-jacket-wearing, ass-is-amazing, patient-caring-for, hot-as-hell orthopedic surgeon. Or, just say I'm getting enough to eat. Either one's good."

He turns and does my bidding (mwahaha, I love controlling him; he's like my own personal emo, angsty, uni-attending robot [what is with my family and angst?]), and then grins at me. "So, who do you hate? The bed-stealing, leather-jacket-wearing, ass-is-amazing, patient-caring-for, hot-as-hell orthopedic surgeon?" Fuck you, Ky. I do have to try to hate her, try to save her.

I shake my head. "Yes. No. Holden Caulfield." He raises an eyebrow. Arizona, you are insane. What are you doing? HOLDEN CAULFIELD?

"What?"

"I hate Holden Caulfied. He goes on about how everyone's phony, but he's just a little school-skipping, ass-kissing, look-at-me-I'm-'cool', white-side, upperclass little shit, twice as phony as the rest of them. If I could, I'd beat his ass down. Just saying." He smothers a guffaw behind a hand, and I almost join him in the laughter, before I remember the problem that's currently residing in my extremely comfy bed. God, this night may well be the straw that breaks the camel's, well, no, not the camel's, camels aren't emo and angsty and depressed and don't have suicidal tendencies and don't need a hell of a lot of help. Camels are, like, perfect. The straw that breaks the penguin's back. Wait, what? Penguin? "Ky, could you kill me now, please?"

He's grinning at me. "Yeah, I hate Holden Caulfield too." He runs his hand through his short blonde hair, looking to the side. "I'm getting sent off next week, Ari. Iraq." My world collapses, and tears leak down my face. Not Ky, not Ky, not Ky, not Ky, not Ky.

"Get back safe, Ky," I mutter, wiping my eyes with my sleeve. "Please, please, please get back safe.

His smile widens. " 'Course I will, 'Zona. I'm AWESOME. Of course I'll get back safe." I shake my head, tearing apart inside. "Love you, 'Zona."

"Love you too, Ky. Talk to you when you get back." I reach out to shut down the webcam. "Franny and Zooey are better." He collapses in hysterics as I shut down the laptop and lean back on the couch, letting the tears run free. Not my baby brother, please, not my baby brother. I stopped believing in God a while ago, but I'd pray to him now if it kept my brother safe.


	3. Author's Note

**I have most of the next chapter written up, but not typed, and I probably won't be able to post it until after next week (thank you stupid principal who thought it would be an AMAZING idea to give us an exam in EVERY SINGLE SUBJECT, even GYM), as I'll be busy finishing up my finals and studying.**

**TEASER:** _I strip in the Attendings locker room, pulling on dry scrubs that feel warm against my skin, and change from my sopping wet red Converses to the black pair I keep in my cubby, the ones with gel pads for comfort during long surgeries. It isn't until I'm pushing through the doors into the scrub room that I remember I'd worn them when I killed Kelsey Matthews the day before yesterday, and it's not until I look up that I remember the name beside mine on the surgery board, the one I wouldn't have connected to anyone if I hadn't thought I'd seen the woman earlier today._

_The surgeon grins at me from where she's scrubbing her arms in the sink. She still looks like the girl I fell for, only with an added layer of sorrow, or maybe hardness, that's built up over the years. That must be how I look, now, that extra shell, only mine is a lie, a freaking perky lie, and I think her's is the truth, but I don't care if she's hurt, if she's dying inside. I don't really care, not after what she did to me. "I thought maybe you'd died on that bench, Arizona," she says, drying her hands._

_"You thought I was dead, so you just got up and walked away? Sure, well, that actually makes A LOT of sense, you being you," I say sharply, joining her beside the sink and turning on the tap. "It seems to be a theme with you." I pretend the water is washing her blood off me hands. Right now, I wish it were. I wish I could kill her, and have the water wash away that sin. Whole new meaning to 'Do no harm', right there. Should be 'Let no harm be done to you'. "No, in fact, I was just remembering. I've tried to stop doing that, lately. I'd rather forget the memories, forget everything."_

_She leans against the wall and raises an eyebrow. "You hate me that much?" she asks, and I shake my head. I still love you that much, that I don't want what's happened since then to ruin the memories of that distant time when we were happy together._

**IJIND**


	4. Smarties and Jellybeans

**You've got my gym teacher to thank for this chapter getting up this early ... we spared out and got computer time for a period. He may have given me the weirdest look when I came out in Health class last week (thank you, Sexuality unit), but he's kind of made up for that now.**

**And, the pancake bit is a tiny bit weird, I know... my mother went all "BREAKFAST!" on us, which was fine with me, as the blueberry pancakes she makes are amazing.**

Calliope wakes up an hour before we need to get back to the hospital; I'm in the shower when I hear her rattling around in the kitchen. I finish washing my hair, my mind going at full speed about scenes including her, me, how showers, and fingermarks on steamy glass. Stupid, Arizona, that's really stupid to think about that right now. The hairdryer's annoying sound pushes all thought from my head, at least for a second, and I stand in blissful numbness, the mirror fogging up in front of me and hiding my distraught face. Damnit, Ky. Why'd you have to join the army, why'd you have to listen to the drunken wreck the Colonel's become since Danny died? Why couldn't you be like me? Why couldn't you go into medicine?

I store the hair dryer in it's drawer, pulling on a pair of black skinny jeans and a purple hoodie as I compose myself. Never let them see who you truly are, that's going to end up being, like, my mantra or something. I take a deep breath, wiggling my toes in my green-and-purple striped socks, and open the door.

She's making pancakes. She is making PANCAKES. Is she a mind reader? I mean, she's making BLUEBERRY PANCAKES. Sure, the meals today were kind of flipped, but BLUEBERRY PANCAKES. I haven't had them since I last saw my mom, the day I walked out of the hangar they'd brought my brother home in, after they carried the casket containing the girl I'd learned to love and hate at the same time down the ramp. And, like with Joanne, I think I love Calliope already, despite how much I need myself to hate her. The scent, mixed with Calliope's, makes me swoon, and the deadly angel is at my side in a moment, asking me if something's wrong.

"No, I'm okay, just kind of woozy." She nods, and goes back to the pancakes as I grab my laptop and open up Google, typing in 'American troop casualties Iraq' and sitting back to watch the search page load. Ky, why the hell'd you join the army? Why the hell'd you do that?

"Sorry?" I realise I'd spoken out loud, and I turn and look at her. "Why'd I do what?"

"I didn't mean to say that," I murmur in reply, clicking on the first link and pinching the bridge of my nose between finger and thumb as I scroll down the page and read the total. Thirty-thousand. Over thirty-thousand men and women wounded or killed in combat. I shut my laptop forcefully, trying not to burst into tears at the number that bodes such ill for my younger brother, and sigh, getting up on my feet. I'm attempting not to throw up at the thought that I might never see him again, and I can't keep the food down; I rush to the washroom and lose the contents of my stomach.

I'd spent the day prepping myself for a heart transplant I had the following afternoon, reading and re-reading, practicing the motions, trying to push away the doubt and fear and anxiety I had about the procedure, so I hadn't had time to look up the rates, and now I wished I hadn't. I couldn't lose another family member; restate that, I couldn't lose my second-last family member to that stupid war. Sure, the Colonel was still alive, but there's a difference between living and being a part of your daughter's life beyond betting on her relationships.

I gather up the medical journals, storing them on the bookshelf in the corner, and place a pair of plates on the counter, where Calliope flips the pancakes onto them. Once again, we eat in silence, we empty plates in silence, we return to the hospital in silence. I feel like I've gone deaf, like I'm not even hearing the noise of the car as we travel down Seattle's busy roads in the darkening evening, like the only reason I know the car is making a sound is the reverberation through every cell in my body.

When we get to the hospital, Calliope mumbles somthing about having the ER shift, and she's gone in seconds. I stare up at the building, not wanting to go in, but knowing I have to, it's my job, saving children is my job. I head to the nearest on-call room after I force myself to walk in and check the whiteboard; I'm not on shift, I've got to rest up for tomorrow, for the surgery I'm not sure I'm ready to do.

I fall asleep.

And then wake up screaming.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Screaming forever.

*****

I've got such a variance in my nightmares now, the freak show in my head's hired a sword swallower to spice up the action. When you think about it, just from a distance, it seems like this new one would be easier to handle than the tiny coffins and the blameless faces, but once I'm drowning in it, it's so much worse. It seems like through the night, I wake up every fifteen minutes on the dot with primal screams that feel as if they're ripping my throat to shreds, but that's a normal occurence for me, now.

I don't know what's brought this on, I don't know why this is coming back now, but it is. I lie in the on-call room bed, breathing slowly, trying to forget for a second that I've got a massive surgery today, trying to hold on to the dream so I can throw it away just as quickly.

I'm sitting on the counter in the garage, watching as Danny pounds away at the punching bag, trying to get rid of the anger. He's just had another freak-out at the Colonel, it seems like that happens daily. Mom's taken Kyle out to the park, and Danny and the Colonel got in a shouting match mere minutes after they walked out the door.

He keeps swinging, and it's my face he's beating away at, I think, it's my face, but then the images shatters at the impact of his fists, and I realise it's a mirror, and Danny vanishes as the shards of glass tumble slowly into the sink. The little pieces smash into a thousand tiny bits, there's glass everywhere as I look down, shattered glass and candy, Smarties and jellybeans, and the red Smarties and jellybeans aren't Smarties and jellybeans at all, just stop eating the red ones last, they're splatters of blood, my blood, pouring down over the fingers of my left hand, mixing into the mess in the sink as I look up into the tiny pieces that still cling to the frame of the mirror and see my broken face, and now Danny's behind me, and he hits the mirror again, everything tumbling out of place. Blood's pouring down his face the way it does my arm, he doesn't seem to notice, and I don't want to look, but I can't make myself turn away. "Look, 'Zona," he seems to be saying, "look at what he's done to us, look at how he's destroyed us." As I try to gather up the glass in the sink, sift through the mess and pick up the pieces, I can't stop looking at his empty, destroyed face. I can't shut my eyes.

I bite my lip, staring at the bunk above me, and shake my head. There was something, there had to be something I saw today, that made the memories come back. It wasn't a patient, I hadn't seen a kid that reminded me of someone. Parents? No, no parents. Wait, was it something someone said in the hallway? About a surgeon who'd flown in today? No, that couldn't be it, no one from Johns Hopkins would care enough about me to come, no one from Johns Hopkins was in anyway connected to that mess a year ago. Might have been a name on the surgery whiteboard, that could be it. Who knows? All that matters is that I'm remembering something that I thought I'd drowned out with tequila and, well, any other alcohol I could get my hands on.

I go through my rounds and post-op patients numbly, lying to my patients with that perky smile and attitude I've learned to hate, talking about rainbows and butterflies, passing by Kelsey Matthews' empty, sterile room and hating myself every time I see the pristine bed covers. I should have been able to do something, to stop it, to save her!

It's ten in the morning, and I find myself out in the Seattle rain, tears coursing down my cheeks. Damnit, Arizona. I wipe them away, a futile reaction, and cross my ankles, leaning back and letting the rain pour down my face. I run through the procedure in my head, my hands going through the motions as I mentally prepare myself. It's good that it's rainging. I always do better when the weather matches my mood.

I heasr running footsteps, and I look up to see someone with an umbrella apporaching me. "Hi," I murmur, my hands clenching on the bench as I return to staring at my shoes.

"Hey," the doctor repleis, proferring the navy blue umbrella. 'Do you want to share?" I shake my head, but she sits down beside me anyways, keeping the umbrella out of my headspace. We stay there silently for a minute, my eyes tracing my shoelaces as I murmur the steps of the transplant under my breath. I hear a gasp, and look over at the other woman. The face brings memories crushing down on me.

_The basketball team is practicing layups as we run through our cheers for the big game. State finals. Once in a lifetime experience, at least at our school, and I'm flyer._

_Joanne directs the catchers as I'm thrown into the air, and I frown at her, then realise far too late that I'm ill-prepared for the landing. Shit. I scramble to redirect myself for the landing as two of the catchers miss their mark, and I crash to the floor on my left ankle with an audible snap. I bite my lip to hold back the tears, and berate myself for ever joining cheerleading._

_No one pays attanetion to me in my position on the floor; Joanne is shouting at the top of her lungs about how we'll never do well if people won't "Fucking concentrate!" I prod at my ankle with slim fingers, wincing at the jolts of pain, and a second later, a basketball player is beside me, helping me to my feet and pulling my arm across her shoulder to take the wieght off my leg._

_"If anyone even cares," she says in a harsh voice that makes the rest of the squad stop arguing and look at her, "I'm taking her to the ER." We make an odd pair as we cross the gym, tall ball player still in shorts and a tee helping short cheerleader in jogs and a long-sleeved shirt. 'Fucking cheerleaders," she mutters under her breath, and I nod in agreement. "You still with that bitch?" I shake my head, Joanne and I are done, as of the night before. "Good choice." She helps me into a beaten-up Chevy, grabbing towels from the back seat and wadding them around my foot. For some reason, she's got the team's first-aid kit in her car, and she hands me a chemical ice pack._

_We make small talk on the way to the hospital, about the science classes me have together, and the chances the ball team has at States. She stays with me until the orthopedic sugeon takes me into surgery, and she's there when I wake up in Recovery and lose the contents of my stomach._

_Two months later, she's won State finals, I'm walking again, and we're going to go to the prom as a couple. Seven months later, after the best days of my life, she's broken up with me at Commencement, and I've reverted back to where I was when i started high school, a science geek who's going to become a pediatric surgeon._

"Robbins?" I look around as I break out of my reminiscence, but the woman's gone, ance again the woman I loved at one point is gone, maybe she wasn't even there to begin with, maybe I was hallucinating, maybe,maybe, maybe, too many maybes. "Dr. Robbins?" I notice Bailey standing in front of me. "The carrier's going to be coming in with the transplant heart soon."

"Shit." I reciever a raised eyebrow, and I realise I've just busted my cover. Sparkly, perky Arizona Robbins doesn't swear. I look at my watch, and, soaked to the skin, sprint back into the hospital to change into a new set of scrubs.

I strip in the Attendings locker room, pulling on dry scrubs that feel warm against my skin, and change from my sopping wet red Converses to the black pair I keep in my cubby, the ones with gel pads for comfort during long surgeries. It isn't until I'm pushing through the doors into the scrub room that I remember I'd worn them when I killed Kelsey Matthews the day before yesterday, and it's not until I look up that I remember the name beside mine on the surgery board, the one I wouldn't have connected to anyone if I hadn't thought I'd seen the woman earlier today. That name'd be the reason for the nightmares, for snapping back into all that stuff before, yep yep.

The surgeon grins at me from where she's scrubbing her arms in the sink. She still looks like the girl I fell for, only with an added layer of sorrow, or maybe hardness, that's built up over the years. That must be how I look, now, that extra shell, only mine is a lie, a freaking perky lie, and I think her's is the truth, but I don't care if she's hurt, if she's dying inside. I don't really care, not after what she did to me. "I thought maybe you'd died on that bench, Arizona," she says, drying her hands.

"You thought I was dead, so you just got up and walked away? Sure, well, that actually makes A LOT of sense, you being you," I say sharply, joining her beside the sink and turning on the tap. "It seems to be a theme with you." I pretend the water is washing her blood off my hands. Right now, I wish it were. I wish I could kill her, and have the water wash away that sin. Whole new meaning to 'Do no harm', right there. Should be 'Let no harm be done to you'. "No, in fact, I was just remembering. I've tried to stop doing that, lately. I'd rather forget the memories, forget everything."

She leans against the wall and raises an eyebrow. "You hate me that much?" she asks, and I shake my head. I still love you that much, that I don't want what's happened since then to ruin the memories of that distant time when we were happy together.

"I hate my life that much." I bite my lip, tears are threatening to come in a waterfall. I put all my attention into cleaning my hands. Don't think, Arizona, it's better just to not think.

"What do you mean?" She can't touch me, not and keep strility, but she comes as close as she can, her hand hovering inches from my elbow as she looks down at me in shock. She was always too tall.

"I've lost everything since I last saw you. Joanne's dead now, too. The Colonel's a wreck. Kyle's going to Iraq in a few days. Mom's trying to cope, she's trying so hard, but I don't know how long she's going to be around." I methodically dry my hands. "You can see why I'd rather not remember." tequila, rye, gin, i need to go home. No, not home, not back to the red Smarties and jellybeans and broken glass.

"Lord, 'Zony." I shake my head. I don't need this distraction.

"We're not doing this, not now." I walk towards the door to the OR, then turn around. "C'mon. We've got a kid to save, Dr. Hahn."


	5. Babe Ruthless

**It's been a while.**

**It's been forever, and I'm sorry for the delay. I'm one for excuses, and WOW, do the past few months throw up excuses galore. Most of which involve me epically failing with my best friend/crush**

**Anyways, here we go. Will most likely be another long wait after, and I'm sorry in advance.**

**You guys are my inspiration, especially lovelikepbandj from the callie_arizona livejournal community who finally inspired me to get this chapter finished. Thank you!**

**IJIND**

Damaged.

That's the way I feel with my hands inside Jeremy McGuire's chest. Damaged, torn apart, sutured back together horribly incorrectly, and the worst part is, I've actually got to be civil to the woman standing across the operating table from me, the damager. I can't yell at her, scream all the things I've had in my head since that day, because we've got our hands inside a ten year old's chest, and apparently it's rude to get into an argument that would likely rapidly disintegrate into a fist fight when you have in your fingers a beating heart.

So I try to cover the rage, meet her eyes with a tense smile before looking back down into the thoracic cavity. It's difficult, though, as the last time I cut with Erica Hahn was in a Grade Twelve classroom working on a fetal pig, and all I can think about right now is the way she massacred the cuts, tearing flesh and breaking ribs to expose the heart and lungs, piercing the liver and stomach in the process and drenching my shirt with pig guts. How far she's come since the rusty scalpels and basically caveman surgery to the cardiothoracic surgeon she is today.

Erica still hasn't made a move, even though the transplant is sitting in ice on a trolley beside Yang and becoming less viable with every passing minute. Her hand is clenched tight around the scalpel, but she's still contemplating the virgin flesh without doing anything. I can't stop staring at those hands, my stomach knotting as I recall exactly how talented they are, and that's when it starts, the twitching in my Achilles tendon, remnants of that old injury. I will it to go away, swear silently as my muscles clench of their own accord. It should stop, it always stops, but now Erica's here, and everything about that broken ankle is part of my story with her, and the stupid muscles won't listen to me.

"Dr. Hahn," I murmur, wincing as I anticipate the next failure of my nervous system. Stupid, idiotic muscles. Just stop, damnit! My words make her break free of her trance. "I need to step back for a moment."

Now that she recognizes she's in surgery, the hypocrite replies, "Dr. Robbins, I don't think now is the time." As if she hasn't been standing there doing nothing for the past twenty minutes. Clench. Moment of pain. Stagger. Muscular release. This is so much worse than it has ever been before. Die, muscle. No, don't die, just, ARGH! I can't very well tell my muscles to die, can I? No, thought not. Just stop, damn you!

"I have a twitch," I say through gritted teeth. A stupid, dehabilitating twitch that is all YOUR fault! I keep the instruments steady in my hands as my muscles go haywire. "Left leg."

She nods in understanding, peers into Jeremy's chest, preparing to make a first cut as Cristina Yang crowds up beside me. Thank God, well, not God, thank someone for the scalpel-hungry animal Yang is. A tic starts up in my right cheek, and I try to take a breath; it feels like all the air has been sucked out of the OR. Damn you, Hahn, and everything you seem to be able to do to me!

Yang takes over my clamps, and I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, rushing towards the scrub room and ripping off my mask as I push into the hallway. Bile rises in my throat, burns tender flesh, pain feel so good, and I steady myself against the wall as I vomit. Which doesn't feel quite as good in the least. My leg is going insane as I suck in lungfuls of sweet, un-Erica-scented air; it's o bad I can hardly stand.

Vanilla and cinnamon pervade my senses, and her strong hands, so different from Erica's, are on my arms. "I'm fine," I mumble, what an obvious lie, Arizona; you've got to do better than that. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and attempt to turn towards the OR without stumbling. What an epic fail that endeavor turns out to be. "Has anyone ever thrown up on the track before?" I feel like a drunk, and now I'm quoting Whip It. Really, I wish I had alcohol on hand to fix me, to forget the fact that I have to grab the front of her scrubs to stay upright.

"Yeah, sure, Babe Ruthless," Calliope replies, getting the connection and showing how unconvinced by my pathetic attempt at a lie she is all in one sentence. That woman is SKILLED. The inability to stand was probably a bit of a clue as well. She helps me sit on an empty gurney and I try to wave her away. "Is my cooking THAT bad?" She quips, her hands on either side of my legs as I take a new hold on her scrub top. She's not going to leave, I guess. Figures. Ignore her, Arizona. Don't look. Look at anything BUT her. It clicks into place that she said something.

"If you weren't invisible right now, I would say 'What?'," I slur, staring down the wall behind her. That stupid paint will never beat me in a staring contest, because I am AWESOME. I glance towards her without blinking; she's blurry, with my vast medical experience I realize in some deep recess of my mind that that's probably not a good thing. Same as the staring contest with the wall, which I am WINNING. Your head is FUCKED, Arizona!

"You threw up just before we left yesterday, and now you've thrown up again." I shake my head, my other hand gripping the hem of her scrubs; she doesn't seem to notice as she keeps her eyes on mine, while I keep mine on that wall. It's all I can do not to pull her closer, then I realize she's got blood streaked on her top, Jeremy's blood off my gloves. I let go, just for a second, one that seems like eternity; I can multitask, peel the gloves off, set them beside me on the gurney, form fists in the navy blue fabric again, all without pausing in my staring contest.

"The food of someone who is not in the room right now is great," I say to the open air, tapping my heel against the gurney as my muscles spasm. It's me that's horrible and messed up. Don't talk, just get over the psycho-ness and the twitching and vomiting and get back into surgery.

"Thanks," she murmurs, blushing, and then she looks towards the door to the scrub room. "I'm going to go tell Erica you're not coming back." She moves, and my hands tighten on her top. I can't let her go anywhere near that destructive woman. Wait, Erica? Why's she calling Hahn by her first name? What happened to my high school sweetheart separating professional life from personal? And why does she think she can do that, say I'm going to back out of the surgery? No one makes my decisions but me. Ever.

"Invisible Woman doesn't get to make that call," I growl, tugging on her scrubs and losing the staring contest in the process. No matter. The wall cheated, anyway. "She doesn't get to make the call, not about this." I feel my cheeks redden in anger; I'm not going to give up my free will to another woman who will, most likely, like everyone before, take advantage of it, of me. I'm not giving up anything to anyone, ever again. It hurt too much the first time. And the second. The third. Countless times. Innumerable wounds.

Her eyes are soft when they meet mine. "Arizona," she whispers, "That's exactly why," and suddenly there's an impact, explosions behind my eyelids, lips to lips, the scalding touch of her hand cupping my jaw, exhilaration rushing through my body as she rips the breath right out of my lungs. Astounding. Amazing. Brilliant. Compulsive. Dazzling. I could go through the alphabet describing this feeling.

I pull back after a moment, this is scary, frightening, she does things to me, controls my body like Erica still does, and that's alarming; I don't want this, well, I do, but I CAN'T, especially not if she can do this to me. Not when I'm broken, because I'll just be pulling this angelic woman down with me. My hands fall free from her scrubs as she turns a effulgent maroon.

"I'm sorry," she breathes, and I nod.

"Memo to Invisible Woman: I've got to go cut," I mutter crassly, an she doesn't even try to stop me as I slip off the gurney; the kiss, that frightening kiss, has healed me, vanquished the spasms and the sickness, fixed me on the outside. As I push open the door to the scrub room, I see her take my place upon the stretcher, her hands covering her face as quiet sobs wrack her frame. Fuck, Arizona, don't just walk away. Do SOMETHING. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

*****

One foot in front of another, Arizona. Take a step. Another one. Good. Keep moving. Legs burning as I run.

"There's a bleeder!"

Pain coursing over my skin, scrub mask clinging to my face, threatening to suffocate me.

"I don't see it, I can't find it!"

Ripped away by fumbling hands, cast aside, tears streaming down my cheeks.

"Damnit, Hahn, LOOK!"

Step, step, impact on toe, keep going, keep sprinting.

"I can't fucking find it! There's nothing!"

Adrenaline rushing through my veins, don't stop, never stop, run, damnit, Arizona, RUN!

"You've got to do SOMETHING!"

Claustrophobic hallways, doors shrinking, tunnel vision, run, run, run, anything to stave it off.

"Close him up. The bleeder's stopped, close him up."

Ignore the eyes and the questions, just run.

"But-"

Gasping for breath, hurtling up stairs, bursting into a cloudy Seattle day.

"He's not stable enough. I'm calling the transplant off, Robbins. There's nothing else we can do."

I pace across the rooftop towards the helipad and back to the door, regulating my air intake and calming down, trying to, anyway, by repeating the path of blood through the heart.

Right atrium. Tricuspid valve. Right-

Was there really a bleeder? Was there really a kiss? Is anything ever real?

RIGHT ventricle. Pulmonary semilunar valve. Pulmonary art-

Someone get me a drink, rum and Coke. Forget today, forget the past twenty years. Forget the silky touch on my cheek, forget luscious lips pressed against mine.

ARTERY. Lungs. Pulmonary veins. Left atrium. Bicus-

She used to call them the bicycle and tricycle valves. Something about deoxygenated blood being like toddlers and needing the third wheel, and oxygenated blood graduating to two wheels.

-cuspid valve. Left atrium.

Wait, no, left ventricle. Aortic semilunar valve. Aorta. Rest of body. Inferior-

I am inferior. She was in there completely over high school, over that period of our lives where we were happy, and together, and I'm dwelling on it.

Concentrate. Inferior vena cava and superior vena cava.

It's a wonder that our blood can navigate all those twists and turns, be such a brilliant component of our body. Carries healing agents, oxygen, nutrients, removes toxins, wastes, does everything necessary and seldom complains. If there was a woman like that, I'd marry her on the spot.

Invisible woman.

Invisible Woman.

Healing, giving food, aid.

Removing pain, suffering.

She's like blood.

Totally like blood.

And I did the worst possible thing to my blood.

I walked away.

FUCK.


	6. Hello, My Name Is Neo

**Once again, it's been awhile. Things caught up with me, and I had trouble progressing from what I feel was a rather soft ending to the last chapter that I really should have rewritten. This is mostly filler, kind of lacking in Callie, and I don't really know how I feel about this right now, but I'm posting it, so I hope you enjoy.**

**IJIND**

"Are…are you…okay?" The query is forced out through tight lips, like it pains her to be polite, to ask something non-work relates of a surgeon, a DEPARTMENT HEAD, she barely knows. Sure, we spent a month growing tissue, building a heart, but that was work, no talking involved beyond what was necessary. Well, she IS Cristina Yang, so I guess the difficulty is a given in this situation.

I shrug, pull my knees tighter up to my torso, my gaze flickering past her to the Seattle skyline. Sure, she opened herself up, stepped outside of her boundaries, to ask me that, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to answer her. Like I said, I barely know her.

"There wasn't anything you could have done," she continues, like kids die for no apparent reason EVERY SINGLE DAY, like bleeds randomly begin in healthy enough patients, like it wasn't both Erica and my fault that it happened. For an impersonal robot, she sure is going on. "I mean, none of us anticipated that, it was unexpected, out of the blue, and there was only a split second of time to react before he crashed, and we just were that hundredth of a second too slow. There was no way you could have stopped it from happening." Like that isn't a barefaced lie. I had my hands in his chest; I could have done something, ANYTHING, to help him. He follows me before he's even been sent down to the morgue, a new face to add to those chasing me in my dreams, a new tiny coffin.

I throw a nod into my nonverbal communication; she's talking longer, so I might as well. The gravel spread across the roof digs into my skins through my scrubs, keeps me alert and focussed. Not that I really want to be, I want to be able to stop thinking, to let my body take control, instead of my brain, so my basest instincts will come into play. I want to lose focus, break down and cry, shout, swear, get roaring drunk and sprint down dark streets screaming at the top of my lungs, I want to feel, not to be this cold shell.

We killed him, is what I mean.

We killed Jeremy MacGuire.

We did the revolutionary with our petri-dish grown heart tissues, we spawned a whole new field of experimental and surgical science, one that may well give some of us a Harper Avery… and then in attempting to utilize our concept, we shamelessly murdered an eight-year-old boy. All in a day's work at Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital. I told him three days ago that he would live four months without a new heart, and much longer with, and now he's dead.

She speaks again, breaks through my downward spiral of agony. "What I came up here to tell you was… the Chief wants to talk to you." Fuck, Yang. Here I thought you'd grown a heart in the same way we grew one for Jeremy, here I thought you were actually acting human, when in fact you were just segueing into a request for my attendance in front of our almighty god, our worshipped man, our leader, Derek Shepherd.

She knows I could off the messenger, so she tries to help, grabs my hand to lever me to my feet. Maybe she did grow a heart; there's pity in her sad, sad eyes. She knows something I don't, and it's tearing her apart not to tell me, but I don't want to find it out until the last possible moment. I don't want the bad news, I don't want the horror until it's absolutely necessary that I receive it. I have enough in my life as it is.

Cristina and I stride down the halls, our lab coats trailing behind us with almost Matrix-like grace. Does that make me Neo? Does that make me a saviour, or does that mean I'm going to destroy the surgical body? Her hand rests on my arm when we reach the door into Hell, and she bows her head nearly reverently. "I stood up for you over Hahn, but I don't know if I'm enough," she whispers, and the broken tone of her voice throws me wildly off.

It's bad, then. It's overly, enormously bad, if it moves the automaton Yang almost to tears. I. Am. Dead. I, Arizona Robbins, am reaching the end of my surgical career, then, I guess. The dead kids that have been piling up around me, corpse upon corpse, have created a wall high enough that it threatens to fall and bury me. It's not my fault. I didn't kill them. I tried as fucking hard as I could to save them, every single one.

I tried.

How do we get to the point where the people who don't realize how much they mean to us seem to kill us?

For some reason, even with Jennings and Derek Shepherd sitting across from me, all I can think about is Calliope. Sitting in tears on a gurney, because I joined the latest in a line of people to drop her.

I come back to my senses long enough to hear the end of Jennings' spiel. "-Put on probation for the next two weeks. No solo surgeries or consultations, nothing on your own, Dr. Robbins." My head snaps towards him, and I nod sharply when I finally compute what he's said. Forget the fact that Hahn was calling the shots on that entire surgery, forget the fact that she was in control when everything went to pot, call me down to HR for her actions. Favouritism much, the bastards. Go with the woman who, as I've found out in the past four hours of interview after interview, has history in this hospital, over the one who tried to STOP her from making the horrid call. Probation. Someone watching me every step, me every word, my every look and breath. They can't quite call it hospital arrest, but it's close enough that the linguistic difference is negated. They're the cops and I'm, theoretically of course, the bad guy.

I won't argue it; I've done as much of that as humanly possible to everyone through these last four hours, Jennings and the HR team, Grace's lawyers, Derek. I thought he was cool, hell, he went ROGUE, for crying out loud, but here I am now, in his jurisdiction, getting this verdict, and that view of him has kind of gone down the drain. Maybe he didn't make the call, just like I didn't make the call, but I guess, like me, he was the home team in that situation, and that authority is apparently enough to get you thrown under the bus.

I send Jennings an evil glare, one I've perfected in the approximately fifteen years since I first received it from a rival high school badminton coach whose ladies doubles team my kickass partner and I went on to beat in area finals, and stand up to leave. Derek gives me a sympathetic look, at least, I think it's sympathy, it could be that someone just stabbed him in the side with a pen, and I nod at him, because I, Arizona Robbins, am the better person. They may think I'm pretty much a child murderer, but I am the better person. I accept the sticker he hands me, a blue 'P' on a red background, because apparently everyone needs to know that they think I screwed up, and apply it to my name card before walking calmly into the hallway. See, I can do it, I can hold myself together SOMETIMES, I can be professional SOMETIMES. Hell, I'm ALWAYS professional. I'm Arizona fucking Robbins!

Making that my mantra gets me to the locker room to gather up my hoodie and jeans, and hide the ID card and offensive sticker deep in my locker. Don't get me wrong, I'm a HUGE fan of stickers, just more so with Curious George and cute little animals, as opposed to probationary beacons of shame.

The door creaks open, and I spin around, slipping my hood up onto my head and pulling my messenger bag onto my shoulder, ready to run. She bites her lip, gives me a nod that makes me gulp. "I heard. I'm sorry. Do you want to go out for a drink?"

Maybe. I don't know. Do I say yes, should I say yes? Maybe. Possibly. Yes, step outside of your boundaries, Arizona, you've got nothing left to lose.

"If you don't… it's just… we need to talk."

"Sure." I can do it, I can make it through a night. You can do anything for a couple hours, you can survive.

She slings an arm around my shoulders and I shiver, but let it stay there. Am I ready? I don't know. I'm always ready. I am so, so, so ready. This feels right, normal. Maybe because it is.

In a moment, everything can change. One word, one motion, can mean life or death for a patient. You make the right call, everyone lives.

If you make the wrong call, however, your neck is stretched for the executioner's axe.

If you make the wrong call, it can seem like everything is over.

But sometimes, that choice, it can bring a whole range of brilliant outcomes, even if the choice is the bad one.

Yes or no. You may not want to, you may shy away from it, but you've still got to make the choice.

Sometimes, those results can be amazing.

Live or die, though, you still have to choose.


	7. Mountain Dew and Memories

**It's been almost a year, and I know no one has forgotten. I don't think anyone is ever going to forget.**

* * *

"Hit me."

The glass slides down the bar towards me, and I pick it up in a tight grip, before turning back towards my companion. Erica grins, and nods at me, a person that's said more meaningful things to me in the last half hour than I've heard in the last ten years of my life.

"I think you've had enough, haven't you, AZ?" She jokes, patting my hand. She's the only thing that can stabilize me right now, the only thing that can make me forget life after Danny.

"Dude, you can never have enough Dew," I pretend to slur, taking a sip of the straight Mountain Dew and placing the glass back down. "I meant it, Erica, what I said just now. I really don't know what's happening to me. I'm trying to hate you, really, you got me stuck on probation, well, maybe _I_ got me stuck on probation, but it's hard to hate you. It's just hard to hate, overall. I don't know, I mean, what happened in there today? Tell me, please, what _happened _in there today?" Okay, maybe I have had too much of a good thing. I'm rambling, rambling is not good, stop rambling, think of something else. Dolphins. Yes, dolphins are good. Dolphins are mammals, right?

"It was an embolism, they figured out. One we couldn't see in the scans." Yeah, dolphins are mammals. What do they eat? Fish? "It was too small... but then it burst, and something so small it seemed negligible... wasn't so small anymore." Fish and stuff. And sea monsters. Wait, what? "The probation? That was no one's fault, unless you want to peg it on the MacGuire parents. They threatened to sue. Shepherd tried as hard as he could to divert them, but they threatened to sue unless something happened, and they couldn't touch me, with me not working here anymore, so they had to topple you." Sea monsters don't exist... do they?

I nod, calm as can be, on the outside, at least. "He said two weeks... two weeks isn't that long. Two weeks back in med school, went by far too quickly. It should be the same now, shouldn't it?" Erica shrugs, takes a sip of her beer. No, sea monsters don't exist. Land monsters, night monsters, do, on the other hand.

"You can't count the days, AZ, you've got to go by the lives. You're grown up, now. Med school would have been a haze of studying, sleeping, drinking, and studying even more. Days packed, nights spent trying to remember things for the exam the next day. Time now, you've got to measure it by the lives, not the books or the beers, that pass through your hands. If you touch enough lives, maybe then it'll seem short, but you've got to have that impact, you've got to keep that impact that you've had going on, you've got to keep saving lives. You've got to keep picking up the shattered pieces." She taps her bottle against the surface of the bar. "You've got to go through it one life at a time."

I roll my eyes, nudge her with an elbow. "That'd be damn near poetic if I could even partly understand what you meant, Erica." She raises her eyebrows at me, checks my glass, and smiles a knowing smile.

"I never thought I'd have to say this, but you, Arizona Robbins, have just gotten hammered on _Mountain Dew_," Erica murmurs, shaking her head at me. "_How_, exactly, I don't know."

"Less hammered, more wired," I spit out, trying not to laugh. The last time I got hammered... man, to get hammered now would take more alcohol than Joe has behind his bar. I may look a lightweight, I may have _been_ a lightweight, back when she knew me, but I've grown into the alcohol, and three cans of Dew aren't enough to get me intoxicated. If caffeine-free, sugar-loaded soda can even get you drunk. Who knows? I check my watch, if I want to make it through the thirty-six hour shift waiting for me tomorrow, I need to book it home, _now_. "I've got to go. You need a ride somewhere?"

"Nah, I can make it back on my own." Last time she said that, she was in Emergency half an hour later with a cracked skull and lacerations to her face and torso. I may kind of, slightly hate her, but that's not happening again. I may drink, but I never do so and then drive, and I'm not going to let her. Ut-ter meant too much to me, to everyone back then, for any of us to try it ever again. Especially me. I touch my left hip briefly, feeling the burn scars there, and shake my head. I'm not going to live that night again, especially not with anyone who lived the days afterwards.

"Erica, I'm taking you back to your hotel. For my sake, just _come with me_, okay?" I slap enough money on the bar to cover our tab, and Joe takes it.

"Thanks, Dr. Robbins," he says as he passes on his way to serve another customer. "For taking care of her," he adds when I look over at him. I must have stared oddly, but then, I was kind of wondering why he'd say that. Does no one usually pay him on the day of? Never mind. I hook an arm around Erica's waist, she drank four or five beers, enough that it's hard for her to stand on her own, and enough that she argues instead of just coming with me.

"AZ, I'm not done drinking," she complains, trying to pull away from me. "And I wanted to play some darts. Look, Callie's over there. I wanna go play darts with Callie!" I turn, and of course, Erica's not lying, Callie is over by the dartboard with Sloan and a few of the residents, facing off against Karev in what seems to be a Battle Royale. I stare long enough that my grip loosens, and, with the beautiful, beautiful, untouchable distraction, Erica is able to get free, and the next thing I know, she's over there, taking a dart from a stricken Callie and tossing it in a perfect arc at the board.

It's decision time. I can leave Erica here with the hospital staff, hope someone thinks enough to get her back to her room safe, and spend the night worrying, hoping that I'm not going to end up in another David Utman-like aftermath, or I can go over there, risk that orthopedic surgeon who has such a draw on me, and be the designated driver I'd promised David's gravestone that I would be.

The cheeky, grinning boy in my head, the one that ended up in a closed casket during the ceremony because his body had been charred almost beyond recognition, the boy who had smashed head-on into a telephone pole while a few other players from the rugby team and I sat in the seats and took the impact, the boy whose body I'd tried, with a broken wrist and unconscious teenagers scattered around me, to drag from the wreckage, whose body I'd tried, and failed, to pull from the burning wreckage, won over me.

I walked slowly towards the dartboard, towards the girl who'd stolen my heart, without realizing it, for the single reason that I'd sworn to David Utman that I'd try as hard as I could to save people.

Because I keep my promises, however hard it is to do.

* * *

**This is why no one is EVER going to DUI in any of my stories, and why I'm going to always be the designated driver. **

**No, I never knew you personally, DH, but your sister, your sister pretty much _broke_. So we've done this one thing, we've taken this pledge, because of you, and what happened. Everyone's going to miss you, and you're never going to be forgotten.**

**IJIND**


	8. BOOM, Headshots

**Look who's back.**

* * *

Erica pulls a stool out from the bar, intent on the game of darts in front of her, and I slide onto a seat behind her, taking a sip from my glass.

"You dating anyone?" I ask, setting the glass down with wavering hands and doing anything and everything possible to ignore the orthopedic surgeon a couple of yards away.

Erica nods, the muscles in her shoulder tensing, and I can't help but smile. Good for her. "Remember that season of the Amazing Race that ended a couple months ago?"

My smile widens into a full-fledged grin. "The one where the Home Shopping host plastered herself in the face with a watermelon?" Yes, I remember that season rather vividly. I can't see how she didn't break something. That had been a direct headshot. Really, the impact should have turned her into some sort of TwoFace, Batman style.

"There was that team of doctors, Nat and Kat?"

"Yeah?" I shake my head in disbelief, laughing silently. She would, she so would.

"I'm dating Kat."

"Seriously? Seriously?" I glance up at he at the exact moment Calliope Torres turns and motions for her to come and play.

"Yep," the reply comes with the kind of happiness I've never heard in her voice before, EVER, popping the 'p' as she hops off her stool.

Our little session of laughs comes to an abrupt halt, a speeding train derailing as it smashes head-on into a brick wall, because some little bird has told Calliope to take the empty stool and let Erica play the resident people have taken to calling my protegee. My stomach sinks, dragging me with it, and I drop my forehead against the cool bar. The world seriously hates me. Stupid Arizona, thinking anything would ever go you way. I am scared, and I am ashamed to admit that, I am ashamed to admit just how terrified, how out of my mind with fear I am, but I am. I am scared.

"Blind?" A loud voice calls out, and my head snaps up. Ha, Erica's pulled out all the stops, brought her A-game. "You want me to play blind?" My eyes flicker over towards where a shouting match seems on the verge of beginning. "You must be kidding me. I can't play blind! I'm crazy good, but I'm not INSANE-crazy good!" Karev is on the verge of intoxication, it's so blatantly open in his tone and his posture, and for a second I'm kind of glad I stayed. There's no one here sober enough to function as a designated driver, except for me. Surprise, surprise.

"You scared, Karev?" Erica asks, and a husky chuckle comes from the woman beside me.

"Never." The resident mock bows towards Hahn and takes the darts from her hand. "Ladies first?"

"Sure, but which lady?" Hahn remarks scathingly, and Alex reddens at the challenge, forming a tight blindfold with the tie someone in the crowd pressed into his hands.

My attention comes off the game when a bottle of Bud is nudged against my hand. Tempting, the condensation of the bottle cool against my skin, but now is not the time for a drunken spree. Give it back, Arizona. NOW. Take another mouthful of Mountain Dew. There you go, that's better.

"So, I heard you got yourself stuck on probation," Calliope comments, and I nod, the drink turning sour in my throat. Of course she'd know. Everyone has to know by now. Just don't talk. She's distracted by Lexie Grey taking a seat on her other side and beginning a monologue about something involving Mark Sloan. I'm not in an eavesdropping mood, more an oh-fuck-what-am-I-doing-mood, more so than I usually am, so I look back towards the darts, and chuckle when I see that Erica's managed two bulls eyes and an inner ring with her blindfold, while Karev's hit the board once, embedded a dart in the wall, and pinned a sleeve to a table. Apparently not so 'crazy good'.

My attention turns back to the bar in time to see Calliope disappear into the washroom, Lexie watching in shock, and I make a choice I'm pretty certain I'm going to regret. Why do we continually feel the need to hit the self-destruct button? I think it feels better when you're hurting, because then you know, no matter what they do to you, you've got a deep pounding ache that's always going to feel so, so much worse. I down the last of my glass, and hop off the stool, steeling myself as I walk towards the door. Fuck, Arizona, you've got one chance. Don't mess it up, please don't mess it up.

I slowly push open the door, my senses so heightened I can feel the grain of the wood under my fingers, and there she is in all her glory, the girl who's ripped my heart straight out of my chest. I lean against the door, and she slowly turns from the sink, meeting my eyes through tears I so badly want to wipe away.

"Hey," she murmurs, and it's so amazingly easy to tell she's breaking.

"Are you going to be okay?" I whisper, word vomit, pure and simple, and I shove my hands into my pockets. Alcohol, I need it so badly. Just shut up, Arizona, leave her alone, just go back outside and pretend this never happened. An impossible feat in all aspects.

"Not being with you is going to kill me," I think she says, but it's so quiet I might be mistaken, please don't be mistaken. I feel buried, walls are tumbling down around me, I'm under the rubble, and I'm breathing in the dust and the blood and it's fine. No, not fine, it's great, the being buried feels bloody fantastic! I had all these doubts, that the kiss was a mishap, a one-off, something to throw me off my game enough that I wouldn't go back into surgery when I wasn't ready, and those doubts have come down!

"Are you going to be okay?" I repeat, just to clarify, as this amazing feeling fills me to the brim, like I might just explode in a burst of rainbows and sparkles and confetti and balloons.

"I'm always okay." Pop. It's not an explosion so much as a letdown, air leaking out of those balloons, the rainbows hidden by thunderstorms that dig the confetti and sparkles into the dirt and bury them with buckets of mud. Shit. It was a mistake. Shit, shit, shit! Reboot! Build that wall of doubt up, quickly, quickly, make a line between yourself and the world, Arizona, or everything beautiful out there is going to break your heart.

"It doesn't look like that," I reply slowly, tasting each accusatory word before it rolls of my tongue. It was just a mishap kiss.

"Do I have to paint it in ten foot tall letters for you to believe it?" she exhales, and I cringe inwardly.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, full of the knowledge that I shouldn't apologize, "I'm so sorry, but if I let this happen…"

She takes a step towards me, one hand outstretched, and I flinch back. "Do I have to paint it in ten foot tall letters? Do I have to kiss you ten times, twenty, a hundred? Do I?" Holy shit. I was right. No mishap, never a mishap. What do I do? What do I do?

The words come out without me censoring them, artillery guns shooting down troops on a desert battlefield. "I'm volatile, explosive. I'm not fearless or brave or anything you might think I am. This would never work, okay? This would be life altering, yes, but not in the way you want. Not life-building. Life-bloody-well-shattering. I'm not the kind of person you think I am, so-" The cold ringtone emanates from my pocket, shattering my composure, and we both look down as I slip the phone out and glance at her before answering it with a short "Robbins."

"Arizona, it's about Ky." It takes me all of half a second to place the voice, even less to name the tone, one of heard twice before. I snap my phone shut. I hadn't realized 'next week' had meant 'Monday'. I hadn't realized 'next week' had meant 'two days from now I'll be gone'. I hadn't realized the last thing I would ever say to my younger brother would be 'Franny and Zooey are better'.

"Arizona?" I'd forgotten about Calliope. I had to finish this.

"I'm not the kind of person you think I am, so this can't ever happen. You're never going to have to see me again, okay? After tonight, I'll be gone, okay? No mess, no fuss. Hello, goodbye." I rip the door open and almost sprint out, so I don't have to see the pain I've so knowingly caused, so I don't have to be witness to the woman I've broken with less than ten minutes of conversation. I don't know who I am, I'm not this horrible person I just was. I brush by Erica, shout for Joe to call her a cab home, and fifteen minutes later I'm headed out of Seattle, out of this momentary stop in life, and back to the home I'd abandoned.

I had to do it, I really did. I had to break her, pull myself free.

Anything was better than killing her slowly.

I have enough skeletons in my closet, more than I can cope with right now. I don't need one more.

I don't know if I'm just trying to convince myself that this was for the best.

* * *

**Boom, headshot.**

**IJIND**


	9. Worth It? Worth It?

**What? Two chapters in a week? What is this insanity? **

**IJIND**

* * *

I don't particularly want to face anything right now; I just feel like curling up in a ball and letting the faint sound of my pounding heart be my lullaby. I never want to have to leave this car; this place in between, this vortex between one place and the next. I live more between one destination and a second than I do in every day I stay put.

My hands tighten reflexively on the steering wheel as I pass a road sign saying that the next exit is the last one into urban Seattle, and continue past the off-ramp. Letting her in would have just been getting down on my knees and asking no more disaster would come, like some tired soldier at the end of a war, too far gone to do anything but pray to be saved. I'd so rather be lonely than afraid right now; I'm a quitter, what can I say.

* * *

The phone, it rings right by my ear. Once, twice, a third time, and then it stops. I turn my head, eyes surveying the inside of my car through a haze of blood, and reach my hand up… up, or down? I reach my hand down towards my head, it hurts like hell to move it, there's a red smudged white protruding just above my elbow. What's going on? What the hell happened? I grab the cell, and click to hear the message that had just been left.

"It's Tuesday the fourteenth, 6:02 AM. A school bus swung out of control, crashed into another, and both smashed into the median barrier at 1 AM this morning. Forty-nine grade eight students coming back from a graduation trip, and we're taking the brunt of the victims into our ER. Four of our attendings are out in the field, and the entirety of the surgical staff is wondering where the hell you are." The message ends, and I drop the phone to land on the roof of the car, where it's buckled from an impact. Through the shattered windscreen, I can see a number laid in black on yellow paint, 258106. Yellow paint... where am I? The last thing I can remember is passing an off ramp...

Yellow paint, school buses are painted yellow, right? Exactly that shade of orangish yellow in front of me. I scrabble my good hand towards my seat belt, but all it reaches is what seems to be the dashboard... which might be the reason why I haven't been able to feel my legs... shit, shit, no, I NEED to feel my legs. It's a pitiful attempt when I try to pull away the plastic, one-handed it doesn't move the tiniest bit. I sigh, reach for the phone again, and find it's skidded a foot or so away, a fair reach for a broken arm. I throw my weight against the belt, trying to grab the tiny piece of electronic equipment that might well save my life... and then everything shifts.

* * *

It's lighter outside, now. The phone is ringing again; it sounds agonizingly close, but I can't see it. I'm on my side, the dashboard's moved a bit off my legs, enough for me to see the damage.

You've got to catalogue, Arizona, figure out what's happened to you. Start at the head, just like your secondary assessment. Pounding headache... possible concussion? Cuts across both cheeks and chin, those would be from the airbags. Neck aching a tiny bit, likely just whiplash. Broken right arm, what feels like a broken rib or two. Dislocated hip, deep lacerations across both thighs that have exposed bone. I can feel my legs now, at least a bit. Left foot is broken, I think, and left ankle, as well.

In order to get my mind off the morbid checklist, I glance around, trying to find the phone that's begun ringing even louder. it's... it's right behind me. I can feel it at the nape of my neck. The twist hurts, jarring every single bit of my body, but my left hand closes tight around the cell, and the pain becomes so, so worth it. I catch it on the last ring, answer with a cough that brings up a bit of blood.

"Robbins?" The voice asks quickly. Shepherd, Derek Shepherd, at least, I think it is.

"Here," I mumble, blood dribbling down my cheek. Maybe it's worse than I thought, worse than a couple broken ribs.

"Where's here?" There's rage evident in his voice; of course there is, it must sound like I'm hung over and now he thinks I've left him stranded.

"Under a bus." I might as well tell the truth as I believe it; if people from Grace are outside the bus site, they need to know I'm here.

"Robbins..." the rage twists a bit, and fear breaks through. "Please be lying."

"Bus 258106, a tiny bit east of Seattle. Green Jetta crushed between the two." It's hard to get all the words free, but I manage it. I need to get out of here, I need to get out!

"That's you?" Shock blankets all the other rampant emotions coming through, and then fear stampedes back. "We're going to get you out, Arizona. Just hang on. I'll stay here with you. I just need you to try and hang on." He shouts for someone to get on the phone with the team in the field to tell them where I am, he yells for them to save me. At least he's sort of with me now. I'm not quite so alone. One. Plus one. Makes two. And then I'm not as scared.

* * *

Someone's shouting at me to wake up, and I lash out at the metallic object spewing those words. Another voice comes from the shadows around me, shadows that are reaching out and imploring for me to 'come home'.

"ARIZONA!" The shout permeates the air with gut-wrenching panic. I grab the cell phone with a groan.

"Shut up! SHUT UP!" I try to scream at him, but the sounds are little more than whispers. "Leave me alone." I need so much quiet around me.

"You need to keep talking." No, I need quiet! "They've cut through half of the wreckage of one bus, they're almost to you. You need to stay with me."

I shake my head rapidly, my vision staying blurred when my head stops moving. " 'This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.' "

* * *

"Doctor Robbins!" It's not Derek, it's not the shadows, it's a new voice, not from the phone, but from the real world. It's legit, tangible, someone here to save me from myself.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do! I don't know what I'm doing here! Tell me what I'm doing here!" I can't stop it, the freaking out controls me, claustrophobia rampant under a ton and a half of warped metal.

"I need you to stay calm, Doctor Robbins. We're going to cut through the door opposite you, so I'm going to need you to stay as still as you possibly can." I don't recognize the voice, but I inexplicably know to trust it . "Do you understand?"

"Yes," I murmur, and then all around me swarms the darkness.

* * *

Who goes to sleep and never wakes up? A coward. I'm not a coward, but this nightmare won't let me go. I need to get out, I need to get out!

"Shh, you don't have to talk. We've got you now." The voices tell so many attractive lies as they swallow me whole. I think I'll go with the, they're never going to let me loose. "Damn it, she's crashing!" Owen, Owen Hunt, that's the trauma yell that resonates so often through the halls of Grace.

"Come on, Robbins, we need you and you stupid Heelys and perkiness. The hospital wouldn't be the same without you. If you don't get through, I think I'll have to kill you." So fully Mark Sloan, I haven't really worked with him, but I've heard the stories. Are they worth it, is anyone worth it? The shadows are so very tempting, it's such a difficult decision to make.

"Mark, shut up. She's not going to stay if you threaten to kill her." Erica, that's three attendings, but Derek said four, didn't he? Didn't he?

"She's scared," the voice comes. "She's scared, and none of you are helping that." Her, she's worth it, I think. She's so very much worth it. I broke her earlier, I think, and I won't be the one to ruin her entirely by choosing the shadows over her.

"No, I broke you." I don't realize I'd spoken out loud until I receive the reply. I try to open my eyes, crusted blood flaking off my eyelids before I get them far enough apart to glimpse a tan face and the roof of an ambulance.

"She's stable," Owen announces, and he must have signaled to the other two, because the re are three jolts as he, Mark and Erica jump out of the ambulance. "We're going to check if there's anyone else left out there. Can you manage, Torres?" She nods, and the doors slam shut on the two of us.

"I-" Calliope begins, and I cut her off. Too hard to let her voice what I think is a lie.

"My phone?" She places it in my left hand, and I dial without looking as she pulls her own cell out and calls up someone who seems to be Derek, judging by the abrupt conversation.

"I raise my phone to my ear, and wait for the click that means it's been picked up. "Mum?" I ask, tasting blood in my mouth. I was wrong, tell me I was wrong.

"He doesn't know who we are. There's a bullet half an inch from his spinal cord, and he doesn't remember anyone at all." Calliope hangs up on Derek as the ambulance picks up speed.

"Thanks, Mum." I shut my phone; I'll talk to her in more detail later. He's not dead, he's not gone, he's just not MY Ky.

"I broke you," the words come, and I shake my head to the negative. She doesn't get it at all. I try to think of something, anything, to say, but what slips out is an insane, psychotic Arizona.

"Let's go somewhere the nightmares don't infect the day." Everyone needs one of those places, and I need one right NOW. I'm not good on the outside right now, but that can heal. There's all this stuff on the inside that I can fuck up, though, fuck up and leave fucked up without fixing, and all my stuff? It's fucked up, fully and unconditionally.

Life is fragile. Tragic. Just one misstep, one foot placed out off bounds, and your world can come to pieces around you, until all that remains is the gun in your hand and the bullet in your orthopedic surgeon's heart.


	10. Let's Build A Ship, Just Not The Titanic

**It's been a while, and I apologize, and I guess that that means the 'schedule' I am on, is about one chapter a month, so try not to expect anything new before December, unless I surprise you all, I guess.**

**Does anyone know how to say why you would be going into Paediatric Orthopaedics, and have wanted to for half your life, without being all sappy and 'I've wanted to for half my life'? All I've come up with to answer that question of 'Why?' is 'Because I love working with kids, and I feel this is the best way I could do so' which is rather lame.**

**Anyways, onwards, mateys**

**IJIND**

**

* * *

**

If, along the way, something is gained, than something will also be lost. I'm only hoping that it works the other way, as well. I lost EVERYTHING today, and maybe if I get some tiny thing back, then I won't lose my hope as well.

Waking up screaming is who I've become. I'm wrenched back into reality with a shout on my lips, a yell of "NO!" that comes ripping from my throat, like tearing a Band-Aid off, painful and necessary. People are going to question, and I am going to bury myself in further lies.

For the second time in three or four days, it's hard to count when shifts aren't days, when you come out of or into shifts in the pitch black, I'm jolted into consciousness in a hospital bed, IV piercing my skin and rough blankets draped over me. For the second time in however many days this is (I could have even slept for days), Calliope Torres is at the end of my bed with bags under her eyes and crumpled scrubs. The only differences this time are the casts enveloping me, and that little thing called waking up screaming.

"Are you alright?" She's so close to echoing the query I put forth yesterday, and it makes me hate myself even more. "Do you need anything? A drink, pudding?"

I shake my head; the headache's gone, no concussion, then. "What's the verdict?" I mutter, mentally continuing the Girlfriend in the Basement lyrics. Man, I need to know, will she, will she live, or will she die? Now that I have time to reflect, I'm half in shock. If there had been a fire, even a small one, I'd be talking to David Utman face to face again, telling him how stupid he was, how idiotic and STUPID he was to get behind the wheel of that van. That's enough to start me hyperventilating, no matter how much I try to control my breathing.

She watches me with sorrowful eyes, and I catch her gaze and begin to calm down. She's got a wonderful impact on me, and, I don't know, maybe she could, no, no, never even think that. No one could possibly do that, Arizona. Don't even dream of the possibility, because you'll crash just as quickly as the idea comes to mind. "One of the drivers had a heart attack at the wheel," she begins slowly. "Lost control in the outside lane, swung into your car, pushed you into the other bus, and then all three vehicles slammed into the median. We pulled out, in the end, forty-nine kids, five teachers, and the two bus drivers. Fifteen kids, four teachers, and both drivers were DOA. The other thirty-four kids are spread between ICU, Recovery, and Peds; the teacher's been released. We were about to clear the scene when Derek called."

She gets a look of fear, one that screams PTSD, one that tells me she's relieving the whole ordeal. Maybe she thinks it's her fault. "Lacerations all over your body, worth about two hundred eighty-five sutures. You broke your right arm in two places, three ribs snapped, we'd though one pierced your lung, but, luckily, it turned out to be just soft tissue damage. Dislocated hip, your left tibia is fractured in four places, and your left foot is crushed. It was around twenty-one hours in surgery," She looks at her hands and swallows, "and I thought I'd lost you at least three times. You were so very close to crashing…" She drops her head into her hands and sighs audibly. "I broke you, and then three times I thought I'd killed you, as well."

"You didn't," I spit vehemently. Don't let her believe a lie. "You never broke me. I broke you; I was broken already. I carry it, spread it around. It's like AIDS, only even more terrible. No need for contact, no, just one look at me and I can tear someone to pieces from a hundred feet away. Two hundred's the Guinness World Record; I managed to set that last year."

She flashes a small grin at that, and it pains me. This pain and hurt, it's not a thing that should be normal. Aching shouldn't be normal. I've got two different hurts right now; there's a deep and tearing muscle and bone hurt, the one that would have me on the verge of tears if I wasn't likely morphed up, and then there's a soul hurt, the one that seems so much deeper, hurts a hell of a lot more, the one that no amount of narcotics can numb. "It's not you, it's me…" She shakes her head, catching herself on the cliched break-up words. "Did I really just say that? Oh God, that's embarrassing. Um, now I can't remember, and now I'm rambling, ad I kind of really need to shut up right now, don't I? Yeah, kind of… Please shut up, please shut up, please shut up." It's like she's forgotten I'm in the room; it's kind of – no, don't think like that, never think like that. She stands up and walks out of the room, words still tumbling out in what I'm pretty sure has progressed into Spanglish, which keeps veering further towards pure, unadulterated Spanish.

She's done the unthinkable, left me on my own with myself, and my fear and anger. I've most obviously destroyed her, in the exact manner I've previously succeeded in obliterating both of my brothers, and Erica, Joanne, and most especially my father. The list keeps growing longer every single day, and every single day I regret the first name I ever added to it, David's name.

I scan my room, and my eyes latch on the pill bottle on the bedside table. Tylenol with codeine. What else would it be? We prescribe this like candy, dispense it to every single person who walks through the ER doors.

I'm contemplating downing a handful when the door snaps open, and I hastily shove the pill bottle back onto the table, scared of being caught red-handed. Instead of a chart-bearing intern, a seemingly levelheaded Calliope reenters the room.

"'Don't abandon the ship, no matter if it's sinking'," she says in what I presume to be her quoting voice, straddling the guest chair and leaning on its back as the door clicks shut behind her. "I've had that mantra drilled into my head for the past thirty-three years, and I'm not going to abandon it, or you, now. We're both just people, you and I, we're normal people, we shouldn't be going about tying tags to ourselves, especially since other people seem to do that to us so well on their own. We're both just people, so I think we need to start over, from the top, forget everything that's happened. Build a whole new ship, so to speak. Let's just not call it the Titanic, yeah?" She grins broadly, her fingers tapping out a tune on the chair back. "We're both just people, so we don't need to complicate this." She sticks out her left hand towards me. "Hi, my name's Callie."

I nod, conscious of the fact she's taken into account my broken arm, and my mouth turns up in to somewhat of a smile as my left hand meets hers. "Hi, I'm Arizona. It's nice to meet you."

"I was wondering," she begins, and my mind goes into overdrive. I'm mortal, I've realized that, but she also basically called me a sinking ship, but maybe she didn't exactly imagine that that connection would be made, and to be fair, that's a perfectly honest representation of me. I need some happy in my life, I understand that, and maybe she can provide it. What the hell, let's dive in, and face the undertow together. Things seem so much darker, so much worse, when you're drowning, and I've been doing so for the past many, many years, so maybe when you get pulled out from underneath the water, maybe when you can breathe again, everything becomes clear, better. "Would you like to go on a date with me?"

"I would," I blurt out, "but I'm kind of inconvenienced at the moment." I gesture at the cast and bandages with a legitimate grin.

"I think I can figure out a way to work around that." She winks at me, and I nod happily. Happy. I'm happy, and it's an emotion I haven't connected to Seattle before this moment. Maybe this could work, and, if it doesn't, if I'm still cracked and empty, it's just a date. Nothing to lose, and it's human contact. Right?

Sometimes, we need to take a couple of steps backward in anticipation of a forward charge, just so we can gain enough speed and momentum to make it work. We have to walk away for a while, relearn how to communicate, how to fix up the telephone wires, how to make sure our calls get through clearly.

Those times, we walk back into life with a fresh perspective, somewhat like a child. Only, we're not making those phone connections to talk about the unicorn that was in our room last night, or the show and tell day tomorrow. We're making those connections to try our hardest to survive, to try our hardest to LIVE.

When there's a communication breakdown, everyone suffers.

You just have to hope someone knows how to reconnect the lines and pickup the dropped calls.

* * *

**Something's actually occuring for the better? _Nooooo_, that couldn't be right, could it? ****7.07 yesterday made me write again, because I want to make them happy, not all broken and wrecked and heartless.**

******Thanks for reading yet again, and stay tuned next month for our next installation.**

******IJIND**


	11. Donuts at Gunpoint

**I know it's been a while, and I have no excuse for that, so I'm sorry.**

**This is going to be shorter than it could have been, but only because it was otherwise going to turn kind of sad, and I didn't really need that right now.**

**Thank you to everyone who still has faith in me actually turning out chapters at this point.**

**IJIND**

**

* * *

**

_"I'm coming in out of the rain,  
__What's happening keeps me from going insane.  
If you could tell me it's even partly true,  
I'd spend the rest of my life waiting on you."  
_Girlfriend in the Basement - It's All A Game (And Nobody's Winning)

In my eyes, there's an explosion of streamers, tumbling down around me. I reach up my good hand, swipe one away, and the crepe comes off in my fingers.

Everything's changed while I slept. Crayon drawings, Lego towers, finger-painted banners. It's like the room from Hell, reminding me of everything I'm missing out on while I'm stuck in this bed. I groan, and a laugh comes from the corner of the room, turn my head, and there's Calliope, not even attempting to hide her amusement.

"Did you?" I growl, motioning towards the decorations.

She shakes her head, still laughing. "No, but now I kind of wish I has." My scowl wipes the grin off her face, only momentarily, then it's back in all its radiance. "Forty or so kids from up in your department. And Karev. If you want to blame anyone, blame Karev."

"It's great," I mumble, smirking. Yeah, Alex, no matter what you might say, you're not in PEDS because it's the elite, at least not totally. We are rather awesome. You're in it for the kids. This just underlines that point.

"So, you hungry?" It's only then that I notice the bag sitting beside her chair, and the delicious scents wafting from it.

"Depends," I draw out. "For what?"

"Well," she begins. "I may have done a bit of research, been a bit of a stalker, and found some stuff out, so I happen to know that Szechuan Beef and Chicken Chow Mein are rather attractive to you, so it's a date. To a Chinese restaurant. With rather... individualist... decorations." Her broad grin mirrors the one growing on my face. _No. Way._ "And, it gets even better. _Boston creams._"

"You're pretty awesome, you know that, right?" No one's ever been able to win me over with takeout and glazed, baked treats before, because no one's ever exerted any effort to _try_.

She nods solemnly. "So I've been told." She sets out paper plates on the rolling table, and adds cups and chopsticks beside them. "You've made me a criminal, though. A pretty awesome criminal, but a criminal nonetheless."

I raise an eyebrow in disbelief. "How so, exactly?"

Calliope shrugs. "I had to hold the bakery boy at gunpoint to get him to make a fresh batch of donuts," she says nonchalantly.

I stare at her; she sounds half-serious. "No, really."

"Checked the clock yet?" It's 2300; how does that make her a criminal? Oh, right. Outside of visiting hours, therefore breaking hospital policy, therefore lawbreaker. Sure, makes a slight bit of sense, but it would make more if she wasn't hospital staff. Possibly she said that just for the shock factor of her last comment?

I go to pick up the chopsticks, but a spasm of pain rips up my arm, reminds me exactly why I can't, and I frown at the stupid little slivers of wood. Dammit. Dammit, dammit, _dammit_! It smells so bloody well _good_, and I can't eat it!

Her eyes flicker from the plate to my arm, and back again, as she nods in realization. "Okay, there's a flaw," she murmurs, and then her face lights up. She picks up a piece of beef with her chopsticks, and profers it to me awkwardly. I open my mouth, and there's a moment when I think she's going to get me in the cheek, but she's got a surgeon's precision, for obvious reasons, and the precious cargo lands safely. She lets out a whoop, raises her arms victoriously, and smirks toothily at me as I chew. Delicious. It is _delicious_.

It's not in any way romantic, hilarious, if anything, especially when she _does_ end up smudging sauce across my nose and then makes an enormous fuss about getting it off. If she'd brought a fork, this would have been negated, but I'm kinda glad she didn't bring cutlery, and I'm _really_ glad I'm not functionally ambidextrous.

She glances up at me as we're eating our donuts, and reaches out a wary hand towards my face. "You've just got... right there..." She leans in towards me to wipe the smear of cream away, and looks at me with a modicum of fear in her eyes, the question blatantly open in her face.

I close the distance quickly, tenderly press my lips to hers, spice from the dinner melding with sweet from the donut to create a surprisingly alluring taste. Her hand comes to rest on my collarbone, our bodies in perfect harmony, and for the first time in such a long time, I feel safe, at peace. Like this is where I was meant to be.


End file.
